Lone Palm Labs

Lone Palm Labs, Inc. is a remote-first consumer technology company developing social applications aimed at fostering genuine connections among friends and family. The company was founded in 2022 by CEO Nathan Sharp and CTO Ryan Olson, both former product engineers from Meta. Their experience building major features like Instagram Stories informed their thesis to create an alternative to mainstream social media, which they felt had shifted from personal connection to public performance and entertainment. The company's flagship product is Retro, a photo and video sharing application launched in 2023. Retro is designed as a private, ad-free photo journal for sharing moments with a select group of close friends and family, moving away from algorithmic feeds and public engagement metrics. Key features include weekly photo recaps, shared albums, and a 'throwback' feed. The business operates on a freemium model; while the app is free to use, a premium subscription of approximately $36 per year was introduced in 2025, offering additional features. In 2025, Lone Palm Labs also launched Splat, an AI-powered application that converts photos into printable coloring pages for children. As of August 2026, the seven-person team operates remotely with offices in New York and San Francisco. Lone Palm Labs has successfully raised over $21 million in a Series A funding round, valuing the startup at over $100 million. The round was backed by notable investors including Thrive Capital, Scribble Ventures, Imaginary Ventures, Box Group, and Figma CEO Dylan Field. The capital is intended to expand the product, engineering, and design teams, scale infrastructure, and accelerate feature development. The Retro app has seen significant traction, accumulating over 7.8 million downloads and reaching an estimated 1.7 million monthly active users, with notable in-app revenue growth in markets like Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and Spain. Keywords: private photo sharing, social applications, friends and family network, Retro app, Splat app, ad-free social media, freemium model, subscription service, Nathan Sharp, Ryan Olson, ex-Instagram founders, Thrive Capital, mobile application, photo journal, weekly recaps, shared albums, consumer technology, social connection, digital wellbeing, close friends network, Series A funding, personal networks